Bubalino, the flying buffalo

Synopsis

The plane crosses an area of turbulence on an international flight. At that moment, the emergency door opens and Isabel and her stuffed monkey shoot out. The girl’s seat turns into a boat and the boat lands on the sea. Arriving at an Island, they find Buffaland. This is just the beginning of a fun and charming book.

Sylvia’s Words

This is the fourth book in the collection I’m creating for my grandchildren. Isabel has long claimed that she flies everywhere on a buffalo’s back. And that this buffalo is tame. I thought that this would be a good idea for a book.

So I took a trip to Brazil and, for several days, I asked Isabel things like: How did she meet the buffalo? What happened after that? How do they communicate? Where do they travel to? And so on. I wanted to encourage her to think of a sequence of scenes in a story, including the beginning and the end.

Back in London, I began to focus on the narration of the text, in transforming the fantastic scenes into a logical whole, and in the characterization of the protagonists: Isabel, Cocoa, her stuffed monkey, and the buffalo.

Isabel as a character incorporates some of Isabel’s usual phrases and gestures. Cocoa comes alive the moment he and Isabel get ejected from the plane and enter the fantasy world.

Through research, I learned about the buffaloes of Marajó Island, as well as the different types of buffaloes found in other countries.

Since the buffalo Isabel imagined is tame, it could only be a domesticated water buffalo, of the species Bubalus bubalis. That’s where the name Bubalino comes from.

Isabel’s Words

Ever since I met the buffalo, my life has become more fun. Now he lives in my room and takes up most of the bed. It’s funny that I just discovered he’s afraid of butterflies, even being that big! That’s because, one day, he inadvertently sniffed one of them.

The buffalo and I continue to travel while I sleep. Our journeys take place day and night as dreams have neither days nor nights.

Reviews by children

“The buffalo came out all sticky from inside the snake, because snakes eat eggs.”

“Once at a picnic, I also saw ants advancing through the food. It’s just that they love sweets.”

“I’ve seen sharks in aquarium and I was not scared!”

Reviews by readers

“I read with delight and pleasure your beautiful and fun book in co-authorship. In it one can see the fantasy of the granddaughter and the rigour of her writer’s grandmother. The story line flows freely.” (Writer)